Mothering Myths: An ABC of Art, Birth and Care

A comprehensive, intersectional and transhistorical meditation on depictions of motherhood in art, from the Middle Ages to today

Rooted in the visual arts, this book gathers a multitude of voices on the theme of motherhood. Though central to the core of all life, the topic of motherhood has long been relegated to the private domain. Within the art world, depictions of motherhood have also been fraught. From the Middle Ages to the 20th century, Mary was depicted as the “primal mother.” Mothers were idealized in Western art, often as women who sacrifice themselves for the good of their children. Moreover, these idealized depictions were usually made by men. In modern and contemporary art, motherhood has been considered trivial and insignificant, not a subject for great art. Artist Lise Halle Baggesen, in her extensive art project Mothernism, describes a “mother-shaped hole”: a black hole in the history of art when it comes to the depiction of maternal care. To this day, that cliché is still largely transmitted to female artists in art school. Young women artists often receive the message that they should not make “womb art” and that motherhood is not an interesting theme for good art. As an artist with a womb, you are often told to choose between artistry and motherhood because both require a full commitment which would make them incompatible.

Following the format of the previously published On the Necessity of Gardening, Mothering Myths starts from the same base: an abecedary intersected by longer essays. The abecedarium gathers fragments of shorter texts that together offer a layered and wide-ranging perspective on the meaning of motherhood, including selections by Tracey Emin, Paul B. Preciado, Sheila Heti, Angela Davis, Simone de Beauvoir, Anne Sexton, Louise Bourgeois, Julie Phillips, Hettie Judah, Maggie Nelson, Linda Nochlin, Susan Griffin, Silvia Federici, Sinéad Gleeson, James Baldwin, Nick Cave, Audre Lorde, Élisabeth Badinter, Sarah Jaffe, Ocean Vuong, Elena Ferrante, Jane Lazarre, Torrey Peters and Rachel Cusk.